“And the body, sir?”
“Burn it.”
“Yes, sir,” Judy Saar said, came to attention, and saluted. Apparently she too thought Major Nasruli had lived long enough. In seven minutes she was back with a one-paragraph order she had apparently typed herself. JR Hays read it, signed it, handed it back to her, and went on to the next problem, which was the armored division at Fort Bliss, in El Paso.
He doubted that the commanding general there would surrender quite as quickly as Major General Ellensberger had. JR knew Major General Lee Parker, knew him to be a perfect bureaucrat who wouldn’t want to buck the system. JR thought Parker personified everything wrong with the army: bureaucratic inertia, lack of initiative, a craven capitulation to political correctness, and a pathological fear of casualties. The media’s fondness for trumpeting casualties meant that a career officer on the way up wanted as few as absolutely possible, so he took as few risks as possible, and accomplished very little. He also kicked difficult decisions up the line, so that he wouldn’t be blamed if anything went wrong. JR thought that before he surrendered, Parker would want the blessing of higher authority, which he was unlikely to get.
Given some time, JR thought Parker could be conned into thinking his military bosses wanted him to surrender, but time was a diminishing asset for JR. He needed that armored division in his pocket right now. He was going to have to convince Parker that he was facing a mountain of casualties in a losing cause.
Major Judy Saar drove a staff car and parked at the first barracks she saw. Inside she found groups of male soldiers loafing in the lounge, loudly discussing Texas independence and the takeover of the base. She said, “Attention please.”
Some of the soldiers looked around. “I am here to ask for volunteers for a firing squad.”
Stunned silence greeted her. One black sergeant said, “Who do you want to shoot, Major?” His name tag read HILL.
“Major Nasruli. I have an execution order here in my hand.”
Every man in the room raised his hand, including the black staff sergeant, short and wiry and buff, with close-cropped, prematurely gray hair. “One of the men he shot was my brother, who is paralyzed from the waist down.”
“I need six people,” she said. “Sergeant Hill, will you select five other men and follow me to the base armory?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
At the armory she requisitioned six M4s and a cartridge for each of them. She passed the carbines to her volunteers and pocketed the cartridges.
“Turn these weapons in here afterward,” she told them. “Now the detention facility.”
She parked in front of the building and waited for the other vehicles, three private cars, to arrive. She felt as if she were watching herself outside of her body.
Her husband, a private physician, would not approve. But then he didn’t approve of her service in the National Guard. He wanted her to stay home with the two children, who were now in junior high and didn’t need her sitting at home. She wanted to make a larger contribution.
The cars drove up and the soldiers got out with their weapons.
Major Saar led them inside, showed the officer at the desk the execution order.
“You can’t do this,” he said. “The death sentence has to be approved by the president.”
“You have heard that Texas has declared its independence and Lieutenant General Ellensberger has surrendered Fort Hood to the Republic of Texas, have you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“The president of the United States has no authority here. Would you care to call base headquarters and verify the order with Major General Hays?”
He would. He did so. After a moment of listening, he said, “Yes, sir,” and hung up and looked askance at Judy Saar.
“Do you have an exercise area?” Major Saar asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Bring him out there. In handcuffs.”
She had the sergeant arrange the squad in a line and handed a cartridge to each of them. Major Nasruli protested as the guards led him out. Apparently he had been told what was about to happen, because when he saw her he shouted, “I have written to President Soetoro demanding clemency. Allah protects the faithful. Allah has—”
“The post that holds up the basketball backboard,” Major Saar told the guards. “Cuff his hands behind the post.”
Nasruli continued to shout, to rant. Sergeant Hill asked, “Do you want him blindfolded?”
“He can take this with his eyes open,” she said.
Nasruli refused to stop shouting. He was still shouting when Major Saar told the marksmen to aim at the center of the chest and gave the commands: Ready, aim, fire. The shots came as one report and Nasruli went down, held semi-erect by the pole. She heard the spent shells tinkling on the concrete. She walked over to the body. Blood stained his shirt. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.
Like an automaton, she drew her pistol, looked to ensure the safety was off, and, using both hands to steady and aim the pistol, shot Nasruli in the head from a distance of three feet. Brains and bloody tissue flew out the back of his head.
She engaged the safety of her Beretta, holstered it, and turned to the officer commanding the detention facility, who was staring slack-jawed at the remains of Major Nasruli. “Pour gasoline on the body and set it afire, Captain.”
The sergeant called the firing squad to attention, turned them, and marched them back into the detention facility.
It took twenty minutes for the detention facility staff to come up with a five-gallon can of gasoline. They are probably robbing a civilian on a lawnmower, Judy Saar thought. She stood and looked at the sky, at the windows of the detention facility, at the body against the pole. She thought she was going to be sick, but she choked it down. Later, she whispered. A bird skittered along the top of the wall. A mockingbird, she noted.
After they put the body against an exterior stone wall, drenched it with gasoline, and set it ablaze, she marched back through the detention facility and vomited by her car. Then she drove back to headquarters.
The staff sergeant and the five other men from the firing squad were waiting for her in front of the building. They had apparently turned in the carbines to the base armory. All of them saluted and she returned their salute. “Major, we’d like to enlist in the Texas Guard,” Sergeant Hill said.
She nodded and motioned for them to follow her inside.
There was a handwritten letter waiting for Major Judy Saar in the commanding general’s office.
“You are now the CO of the base and the 1st Cavalry Division. Get as many soldiers enlisted as possible, and get the 1st Cavalry ready to fight. I am on my way to Fort Bliss to grab the 1st Armored, Old Ironsides. We’ll need them too. You are a good soldier. I’ll back you in every decision you make. Texas needs you.” It was signed by JR Hays, Major General.
TWELVE
On the flight line at the base airfield, JR Hays went into a ready room full of helicopter pilots. They were gathered around a television, watching the feed from Washington. Someone saw JR enter the room and called everyone to attention. JR walked to a spot in front of the television, turned it off, and told everyone, “Please be seated.”
He surveyed the faces. Most army pilots are warrant officers. He was looking at a bunch of them, with a few commissioned officers scattered among them.